


Gallifreyan

by emmiegrace



Category: Doctor Who
Genre: F/M, Gallifrey, Gallifreyan, Gallifreyan Rose Tyler, One Shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-17
Updated: 2017-10-17
Packaged: 2019-01-18 13:43:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 479
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12389262
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/emmiegrace/pseuds/emmiegrace
Summary: Donna sat quietly on the jump seat as she listened to the alien couple speak in their native tongue.





	Gallifreyan

**Author's Note:**

> (A one-shot from an AU I don't think is explored enough- Gallifreyan!Time Lord!Rose).
> 
> Languages are my favorite things. And there's honestly nothing I love more than listening to people speak in their native tongues- even though I have no clue what they're saying. I just think there's something beautiful about that. The Doctor (and Rose here) are the only ones who now know and speak the language... it's sad but beautiful. This is Donna appreciating that.

Donna sat quietly on the jump seat as she listened to the alien couple speak in their native tongue.

Usually, she would interrupt and tell them to speak English, or complain some more about how the TARDIS refused to translate Gallifreyan for her. But, every once and awhile, like this time when she’d asked for a surprise, she would listen to to the beautiful language as it rolled off their tongues.

It was a strange mix, Donna thought, of Greek and Swedish, but with Italian inflection. Yet somehow still their accents remained mostly  _ British _ sounding despite the alien words. They certainly sounded more melodious than all of those languages though. She glanced up at the monitor to see it’s regular circular and linear Gallifreyan flashing across it. It was of course, all Greek to her.

She tried, once, to figure out how to read the strange symbols, but the dusty old Gallifreyan-to-English text she’d dug up in the library only managed to make it all more confusing -some of it even requiring mathematical algorithms to translate.

Rose and The Doctor were spinning around the console in their usual dance, hitting buttons and pulling levers as they called out directions to each other in Gallifreyan- apparently the controls didn’t translate to English well. As Donna well learned during her flying lessons when they frequently referred to controls as ‘that thing-a-ma-bob there- yes- no- up- down- left a bit- there! Yes the spinny one- no the other one!’

Whenever she could get them to talk about Gallifrey (rather than just in it) were her favorite stories to listen to. As interesting and heroic as their stories through time and space were, it was these stories from their childhood that really told her who they were. They’d both been outcasts there, apparently. Never fitting in at The Academy, insisting on bonding despite the taboo, and even going so far in their rebellions against the Citadel to steal a TARDIS because they got mad it was sitting in a museum.

They’d had kids. A long time ago. They still can’t speak about them without crying. Donna didn’t ask.

She sighs now and looks up at the aliens as they fly their ship through the time vortex, ecstatic grins painting their faces as they take their human friend on the next great adventure. Neither one of them looked more than 35, but Donna had seen their eyes when their guards were down. They were hundreds of years old. Thousands. Years weighed down their combined four hearts.

The Doctor says one more thing to Rose in their language as they land, and Donna thinks it must be something akin to “I love you” based on the smile and blush that the words bring to her face.

He was the only one in the universe who could say those words anymore, of that much Donna knew.


End file.
